Under the terms of his parents contested divorce, ten-year-old Aaron is to attend Yeshiva Mesivta Arugath Habosem in Williamsburg until he graduates elementary school in 2026.
As such, he should have been in school for the last two weeks.
Instead, he is stuck at home caught in the crossfire of the ongoing debate over educational standards at yeshivas.
His mother, Beatrice Weber, has been actively pushing yeshivas - such as the one she is required according to the terms of a custody agreement with her ex-husband to send her son - to teach subjects like English and Social Studies along with Torah and Talmud.
“They told me he was unhappy, and that was why they didn’t want to take him back,” said Weber, executive director of Young Advocates for Fair Education.
“But I strongly suspect,” she continued, “the school does not want my son because they’re concerned about the questions I’m going to ask.”
In a statement from the Yeshiva, administrators said Weber standing is in the way of her son’s Hasidic education.
“The fact is that Ms. Weber regularly brings her son to school late, and has hampered our every effort to get him the services and assistance he needs,” reads their statement.
“It is shameful that Ms. Weber uses her perch atop a tax-exempt non-profit to further her personal litigation, and even more shameful that she has made her son a pawn to advance her professional interests,” it said.
“Ms. Weber’s reputation,” said Steven Silpe, an attorney for Aaron’s father, in court filings, “as someone who will cause these yeshivas to have to spend tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation is well known to the Orthodox education community at large.”
Weber said she is heading to family court Monday to ask that Aaron be immediately enrolled in a co-ed religious school that offers more secular studies.
In response, her ex-husband through his attorney asked to bar Weber from educational decision-making, saying the yeshivas would be willing to accept Aaron if he is calling the shots.
Weber, a mother of 10 who decided to leave the Hasidic community, filed a petition in 2019 with the state Education Department, charging that Yeshiva Mesivta Arugath Habosem failed to offer the same level of reading and math instruction as public schools, or basic lessons in social studies and science.
Weber brought the complaint against the backdrop of a larger movement to regulate nonpublic schools falling short of state learning standards.
Last fall, State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa ordered the city to work with Aaron’s yeshiva on a corrective plan — marking the first time the state intervened in the teaching practices in a yeshiva. The yeshiva is supposed to start implementing those reforms and reviews by local education officials this school year.
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1 comment:
I have many kid used as pawns mostly by there moms causing parental ailination and Stockholm syndrome this is done regularly and the court aids this unfortunately this is a large apidemic and needs to be stoped many damaged kids for life
And the courts all say the same sick answer kids are resilient sady not true and who are they to cause child abuse family court should be defended and shut down there should be shared parenting
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